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HON. JAMES E. COOLEY, 



IIEFORK THE 



DEMOCRACY OF SYRACUSK, 



*^ 



IN MASS ^fEETING ASSE M BLED, 



TrESDAY EVKNTNO, NOV. 1, ISuH. 



NEW- YORK: 

JUlIN J'. 'IKOW, rRINTKR, 49 ANN STliEET. 

1853. 



SPEECH 

I. 



OF THE 



HON. JAMES E. COOLEY, 



BEFORE THE 



DEMOCEACY OF SYEACUSE, IN MASS 
MEETING ASSEMBLED. 



TUESDAY EVENING, NOV. 1, 1853. 



NEW-YOEK: ^ 
JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 ANN STREET. 

1853. 



THE ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN IN NEW-YORK. 



PRESIDENTIAL INTERFERENCE BOLDLY 
REBUKED AND DENOUNCED. 



THE CANAL POLICY VINDICATED. 



SPEECH of the Hon. JAMES E. 00 OLEY before the Democ- 
racy of Syracuse^ in inass meeting assembled, on Tuesday 
Evening, November 1, 1853. 



Mr. COOLEY, being loudly called for, and warm- 
ly cheered, addressed the immense assemblage as 
follows : 

Fellow-Citizens : — I thank you for this warm reception, 
and for these flattering manifestations of your kind regard. 

Since the commencement of the exciting canvass for local 
officers, now going on in this State, I have not opened my 
lips publicly, either in commendation of the regular demo- 
cratic ticket, on which my humble name happens to appear, 
nor in just condemnation of that nominated by the Barn- 
burner cabal of Tammany Hall. Not that there would have 
been any impropriety in mounting the stump, in imitation of 
the high example, in favor of his own election, of the present 
executive, Grovernor Seymour; but, however much I might 
say respecting the acknowledged fitness for office, and the 



high accomplishments of the distinguished democratic nom- 
inees with whom I have the honor to be associated, I feel so 
much reluctance in seeming even to be the advocate of any- 
supposed claims of my own, that I should not now venture 
to come before this large and intelligent assemblage, but that 
I desire to say a few words about our internal improvements ; 
and, moreover, to repel a wanton personal attack made by 
the President of the United States through his recognized 
organ, the Washington Union, with a view to influence and 
control the local elections of this State. 

I remember passing over the site of your city more than 
thirty years ago. Then it was mostly an uncomely and de- 
solate scene, covered with stumps and trees, with decayed 
wood, and mud and malaria. Then it had an insalubrious, 
ungenial aspect, and, in close proximity to it, were vast tracts 
of primitive forests, stretching off majestically beyond the eye's 
comprehension, and almost illimitable in extent. Then there 
was little attempt at cultivation in the immediate vicinity of 
Syracuse, and only a few slightly built houses and shops scatter, 
ed here and there, mostly along the banks of the newly exca- 
vated canal. Then there were no school-houses nor churches 
in the place; and, I believe, only one small public house, and 
that was situated on the north or left bank of the canal- 
There were a few shops, groceries and porter-houses, and some 
stables for canal horses ; but I doubt whether stages began at 
that time to run through Syracuse. The roads, only endur- 
able in dry weather, were impassable during the rainy season, 
in late autumn and early spring. In short, Syracuse had then 
but j ust emerged out of the gloomy wilderness, the silence of 
which had but recently been broken, and the forest cleared 
away, in constructing the canal ; which v/as then so nearly 
completed along the middle and eastern sections of it, as to 
admit the passage of boats down to the Hudson. 

What a wonderful change has been wrought here since 
my first visit to Syracuse ! How has this great, populous, 
thriving town sprung up here in the " wild woods of the West," 
as this region was called less than forty years ago ! Where 
the wilderness, in all its solitude, but so recently and so grand- 
ly waved, and so securely sheltered the wild Indian and his 



favorite game, we now witness the most animating manifesta- 
tions of civilization, wealtli and refinement. A lively and 
lucrative commerce crowds your streets and your extensive 
warehouses, and presses tbrougli your city by way of the ca- 
nals, down to the sea. Your streets are ample, well paved, 
and every where compactly built up with dwellings, stores and 
work-shops, proudly indicating an industrious, enterprising 
and prosperous population. 

Your churches seen from afar, attest your devotion to the 
Great Giver of every perfect gift ; and your numerous school- 
houses and institutions of learning, promise a long and vigor- 
ous perpetuity to the incomparable blessings of civil and re- 
ligious liberty. Scarcely has one generation passed away, 
when, from a scene of desolation, wildness and seclusion, has 
sprung up here in the geographical centre of the Empire State, 
a great, populous city, and abounding in wealth. On every 
hand the seal of prosperity is stamped upon the enterprise and 
industry of an intelligent people. The surrounding forests 
have long since vanished •,. and a numerous yeomanry pursue 
their peaceful occupations upon the mountain sides, and upon 
the fertile plains, reaping a generous return for their good 
husbandry and careful management. Here, in the city and in 
the surrounding country is presented on every hand, the strong- 
est evidence of contentment and of a high civilization, con- 
trasting so strikingly with its former aspect, that one may justly 
inquire into the primary causes of this astonishing change. 

Yours is an inland town, situated upon no large navigable 
river, nor is it very near to any, by which the redundant 
products of a densely populated district might conveniently 
be conducted to market. You are 300 miles from the nearest 
seaport ; naturally shut out, as it were, by a long and expen- 
sive transportation, from the commerce of the world. Why 
is it that you have been enabled so completely to overcome 
these natural disadvantages— and that you are now nearer in 
point of time, to the great commercial emporium of this con- 
tinent—the city of New- York— the best market in the world 
—than you were, less than forty years ago, to the neighboring 
cityofUtica? What has been done for you, or what have 
you done for yourselves, to produce this wonderful change in 



the present prosperity and bright future prospects of your 
large city and its fertile and extensive environs? What has 
so soon converted a wilderness into a garden of civilization, 
beauty and productiveness — that has raised the price of your 
soil from a few cents, to fifty, seventy, and in some instances, 
to hundreds of dollars per acre ? 

The answer to these important inquiries — deeply important 
to every patriotic citizen of this State — is, I doubt not, at this 
moment, upon the lip of every intelligent man now within 
the sound of my voice. You will say with one united voice 
— with one great, earnest, harmonious tone — with a sound that 
will echo to the utmost verge of the State, in all directions, in 
all places, and at all times, that your prosperity has been, and 
must continue to be, attributable to the great Erie Canal ! It 
is, indeed, to be attributed to that Herculean enterprise. Had 
not that canal been constructed, it is not, I venture to say, too 
much to assert, that this city would never have existed ! Had 
the enemies of the immortal Clinton succeeded in their fiend- 
ish hostility to his enlightened and patriotic plans of internal 
improvements, this spot, where we now stand — the surround- 
ing country in all directions — the rich Genesee valley, and the 
wheat growing plains of the central and western sections of 
the State, now so populous, so highly cultivated, so rich, and 
so prosperous, would have mostly remained to this day, like 
the dense forests of the northern counties, in a state of primi- 
tive grandeur and gloom ! Here, but for the construction of 
that noble, State-enriching public work — that great civilizing 
instrument — which has subdued the wild regions of the west 
and filled them with populous towns — which has diffused a 
healthful fragrance throughout the land and given unparalleled 
vigor, animation and enterprise to our people, the untamed 
Indian might yet bask him in the sullen majesty of impenetra- 
ble seclusion — the monarch of a woody waste. Yes, my fellow- 
citizens, strange as it may seem to some, and doubtful perhaps 
to others, who have contested, and will contest against the in- 
ternal improvements of this State, which have enriched and 
benefited every department of trade, had Clinton, through 
the wicked persecutions which he suffered for more than a 
quarter of a century, from the enemies of internal improve- 



ments, failed of convincing the people of tlieir perfect prac- 
ticability and advantage to the public interest, the Erie canal 
might never have been achieved ; and this fertile section of 
country, now the scene of so much commercial, manufacturing 
and agricultural activity and opulence, might have continued 
comparatively uninhabited, uncultivated, and unredeemed, for 
many long years. The shores of the great inland seas of the 
west, and the borders of the large navigable streams north and 
south, much of which still remains unoccupied, would all have 
been settled long ago. That part of the State bordering the 
St. Lawrence, which is now but sparsely populated, would 
have presented a more inviting prospect to the interests of the 
farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant, than this, had 
the Erie canal not been constructed. The country bordering 
the St. Lawrence naturally looks down that noble river to a 
market — to an easy, cheap, and direct communication with 
Montreal, Quebec, and with foreign countries, through the 
connection of that stream, navigable for vessels of all sizes, 
with the Atlantic Ocean. This fine river is the natural outlet 
of the great and increasing commerce of the west, draining 
vast productive territories in the north, as does the Mississippi 
on the south. 

But happily for the early development of the natural 
resources of central and western New- York, for the great and 
permanent interest of this and many of the western States ; 
indeed, I may say for the Union itself, and for the sacred cause 
of humanity, the bad counsels of Clinton's enemies did not 
prevail; the Yan Burens, the Eoots, the Youngs, and the 
bucktail Barnburners of Clinton's time, were scattered to the 
winds, whenever he came before the people. When the 
people, through the clear and vigorous intellectual powers of 
Clinton, and Morris and Fulton, had become sufficiently well 
informed upon the subject to understand its advantages, the 
canal was a favorite theme with them, and the more the great 
projector of that noble enterprise was persecuted, derided, and 
hunted down by his opponents, the dearer did Clinton be- 
come in the eyes of the people, and the more confidence was 
inspired in the ultimate benefits to be derived from the com- 
pletion of the canal. Clinton and Morris sought an easier, a 



8 

more direct, a cheaper and a safer communication between the 
western regions, which they foresaw must become densely 
populated, and the Atlantic, by means of a canal, which 
should divert western commerce from the St. Lawrence and 
the Mississippi, and conduct it directly down through their 
own State to the commercial metropolis, thereby enriching the 
whole State, whose entire population was then less, by nearly 
one hundred thousand, than that of the city of New- York at 
the present time. Virginia, at the commencement of the 
present century, when the project of a ship canal first began 
to be publicly discussed, had a population larger, by nearly 
three hundred thousand, than New- York, and a much greater 
valuation of property. Pennsylvania had nearly one hundred 
thousand more inhabitants, and North Carolina nearly equalled 
it ; while Massachusetts had scarcely one hundred thousand 
less, and an amount of available wealth far surpassing this 
State. How wonderful the contrast now in favor of New- 
York, which has outstripped in wealth, population, and pro- 
gressive improvement, every other State in the Union, ever 
since the construction of the Erie and Champlain canals, 
which have conducted the trade of the west down through 
our State ; and the city of New- York has presented a scene 
of activity and growth, unparalleled in modern times. 

Yet, however great have been the advantages of your 
canals to the State, however much they may have contributed 
to its settlement, and developed its abundant resources, and 
particularly those of the central and western sections of it, and 
however much they have contributed to swell the population 
and wealth of your cities, these great public achievements were 
only urged through to completion by the patriotic Clinton, 
after many patient years of ardent struggles against the insane 
opposition of those who were really more benefited by these 
improvements than himself; but who, nevertheless, ceased 
not to persecute him to the day of his death. 

The entire delegation in both houses of the Legislature, 
from the city of New- York, and the extreme southern and 
eastern counties of the State, voted against constructing the 
Erie canal. Many patriotic citizens then, as now, looked up 
to noisy partisan leaders — who clamorously told the people. 



9 

that Clinton's project of a canal was impracticable, and would 
involve the State in irretrievable bankruptcy and ruin ! They 
represented him as a theorizing, visionary, ambitious political 
aspirant ; seeking to ride into power by means of his project 
— which they derisively denominated " Clinton's ditch." They 
spared neither money nor time in their unremitted and wicked 
efibrts, to obstruct the public improvements ; and they resort- 
ed to the most despicable means for annoying Clinton. They 
even stooped so low — (if such men, in doing a mean act, may 
be said to stoop,) as to procure his removal, under the admin- 
istration of Grovernor Yates, from the office of Canal Commis- 
sioner ; an onerous position, which he had worthily filled, and 
with great advantage to the public interests, without receiving 
the slightest remuneration for his services. 

Van Buren and his hireling clique of unscrupulous intriguers, 
after failing in their design to defeat the re-election of Clinton 
in 1820, by means of Federal votes — " those high-minded fed- 
eralists," who declared, by a public proclamation, that "they had 
no longer any grounds of principle to stand upon," — who came 
out in a body and voted for Daniel D. Tompkins, then Vice- 
President of the United States, who had been dragged out for 
the occasion, as the only man in the State that could be nominat- 
ed with any probability of defeating Clinton ; these unscrupu- 
lous political intriguers against the honest fame of that great 
man, after being beaten by him before the people, and driven in 
disgrace from the field, with their federal allies and Bucktail 
bullies — modernly denominated "short-boys," (a specimen of 
whom, a few days since, made their impressive advent into 
this quiet and well-ordered city,) sought to break down the 
power of Clinton, and hurl him from office, by a revision of 
the Constitution. 

The Convention, which met for that purpose in 1821, made 
many changes in the Constitution of 1777 without materially 
improving it; and their illustrious successors, who had 
it under review again in 1846, made the matter worse! 
The appointing power, which, for forty-three years, had 
been exercised by a council of appointment, was, in the 
Constitution of 1821, vested in the Governor. It made many 
offices elective, which were previously held by appointment ; 
and on its adoption, it provided for the vacation of all offices 



10 

held by virtue of tlie old Constitution ; and Clinton went out 
of office with other incumbents, thus summarily, though con- 
stitutionally, dismissed ! His Van Buren and Bucktail perse- 
cutors, who had struck hands with their new federal allies, 
one of whom, Kufus King, steadily supported by the federal 
party from 1789 up to 1814, was re-elected to the Senate of 
the United States by the coalition of the federal and Van 
Buren Bucktail vote, now were in hopes that they had de- 
stroyed the popularity of Clinton — that they had disposed of 
their most powerful political opponent, and that they might 
now rule the State with a high hand. 

They elected Judge Yates governor, who, like the present 
incumbent of that responsible position, did not recommend 
specifically, in his first message to the Legislature, a single 
measure, — He played the weak tool of his wirepulling friends; 
made such appointments as the Van Buren men desired, and 
aided in the persecutions of Clinton ; who, like Daniel S. Dick- 
inson, and those who now sustain his patriotic course, was 
then derided and held up to public reprobation by a band of 
office-hunting bucktail marauders, not very dissimilar to the 
Van Buren, Fowler and Cochrane short-boy slanderers of the 
present day. 

Yates, in the hands of these desperate men, was a con- 
venient tool for a convenient season. Jesse Hoyt was elected 
a member of the Assembly ; Wilham L. Marcy was appointed 
Comptroller, and Van Buren was a Senator of the United 
States, a position so ardently desired by his reckless son John, 
who has much stronger claims to that distinction than the 
father, and intends, eventually, to ride into it on the backs of 
the short-boys, precisely as the elder Van Buren did, by 
hanging on to the skirts of the bucktails. 

Yates was a mild, weak, inefficient man, of no decision of 
character, always placing more confidence in a treacherous 
enemy than in his friends. He acted under the whip and 
spur of those who effected his downfall, and sought more 
assiduously to buy over his enemies by the rewards of office, 
than to conciliate and satisfy his friends, by a clear recog- 
nition of their just claims. An ambition to occupy high 
positions in the public service, for which he was neither fitted 



11 

by the endowments of nature nor the accomplishments of art, 
was the fatal rock on which Mr. Yates finally foundered. He 
was at length deserted by his political friends, who were, in 
fact, secret enemies. They had contrived to dupe and use 
him, to carry out their bad purposes ; and, after bringing to 
the block the head of De Witt Clinton, as the present execu- 
tive has been called under simijar circumstances, to execute 
John C. Mather, he went out of office unregretted, if not 
indeed despised. 

De Witt Clinton lived to triumph over all his persecutors 
and political enemies. 

When the Bucktail bullies, at the close of Yates's adminis- 
tration, removed Clinton from the office of Canal Commis- 
sioner, without preferring any charges of mal-conduct against 
him, a tone of indignation and rebuke rang throughout the 
State. 

On the last day of the session of the Legislature, a few 
minutes before the time fixed for the adjournment of both 
houses, Mr. Bowman, a senator from Monroe county, sub- 
mitted a resolution for the removal of Clinton from the office 
of Canal Commissioner ! The resolution was acted on without 
a moment's delay, and all the senators, save three, voted in 
the affirmative. The resolution was immediately sent to the 
Assembly, where it was instantly passed by a large majority ; 
showing very clearly that the plot for his sudden and unex- 
pected removal had been deeply and securely laid, — that the 
ground had been carefully canvassed, and the hangmen 
hired; that on the day of execution, the gibbet-men, one of 
whom is Kedfield, the new collector, were ready to seize their 
victim and bind him for the slaughter. 

The tyrannical leaders of the Albany regency of that day, 
like the pitiful scapegraces of a later period, thought that "the 
times demanded a victim or required an example I " And 
what a victim ! They seized upon De Witt Clinton, the 
earliest and most devoted friend of internal improvements, 
whose life had been spent in the faithful discharge of respon- 
sible duties in the public service — whose friendship and devo- 
tion to the Erie and Champlain canals, only ceased when he 
himself ceased to breathe I That was the " victim " whom the 



12 



Bucktail bullies of 1824 "demanded" and seized; precisely 
as the Short-boy bullies of 1853 fastened on Commissioner 
John C. Mather, putting the State to a vast expense for his 
trial, on trumped-up charges of impeachment, under the pre- 
tence that " the times required an example and demanded a 
victim ! " These Short-boy marauders are, forsooth, the pro- 
fessed friends of the people— the political money-saving phi- 
losophers of modern times ; that is, if you will take their oaths 
and broken pledges for it. 

The people, however, are beginning to find these unscru- 
pulous Short-boy political philosophers out. They have been 
so often cheated and betrayed by their false promises and spu- 
rious tokens, they are not willing longer to trust them. They 
are soon to be hurled from the high places of public trust, 
which they have already too long disgraced. 

The Bucktail outrage, perpetrated by the removal of De 
Witt Clinton, operated like an electric shock upon the whole 
community. Every one was taken by surprise. The people 
of Albany, without distinction of parties, rushed to the Capi- 
tol en masse. They organized a meeting, and passed resolu- 
tions commendatory of the great services of Clinton, and 
deeply condemning the conduct of his political persecutors. 

Similar meetings were held in the city of New- York and 
other parts of the State, reprobating this outrage of the Buck- 
tail bullies and the Albany regency, which at this period be- 
trtxn a reign of terror, that, with slight intervals, continued to 
increase in severity, until the total wreck and overthrow of 
Yan Buren in 1840. 

The removal of Clinton failed to produce the effect intend- 
ed ; for, from that moment, and not till then, his friends be- 
gan to insist that he should be the next candidate for Gover- 



nor. 



Clinton was emphatically the man of the people — in whom 
they had the fullest confidence. He was a strong man when- 
ever he came before the people, though he could hardly have 
been called a strong party man. He was never elected on 
strictly party grounds, though, when in the field, he was the 
terror to all political partisans, and generally broke down and 
overrode party discipline and parties themselves, which had 
the boldness to interpose their opposition to his popularity. 



13 

The Van Burcn and Albany regency Bucktails nominated 
as their candidate for Governor, in opposition to Clinton, Co- 
lonel Young, a professed admirer and supporter of Henry 
Clay for the Presidency of the United States ; though the re- 
gency candidate for that office was Mr. Crawford, for whom 
Van Buren expressed a decided preference. 

Clinton was known to be in favor of General Jackson ; 
and he was the first northern man of any distinction, who 
openly declared himself in favor of the hero of the battle of 
New Orleans for the Presidency. 

Although the Bucktails and the Albany regency had ex- 
pected an easy conquest over Clinton, when the election came 
oflP, the result astounded men of all parties. It was a com- 
plete political avalanche, sweeping all opposition to the winds. 
Clinton's majority over Young was nearly seventeen thou- 
sand ; and the new members of the Legislature were three to 
one in favor of Clinton and the canals. Thus the Bucktails 
and the Albany regency candidate for Governor, again had 
their heels tripped up by opposing Clinton, who had on all 
occasions proved himself to be entirely an over-match for 
them whenever their strength was tried. 

The canals were not yet completed ; and it was for the 
public interest that their great friend and original projector, 
who had on all occasions exhibited such unwearied zeal and 
devotion to the prosecution of the work, should continue at 
the head of the government until their final completion, which 
was expected to take place in the year 1825, and was then ac- 
complished. 

On the second day of November, of that year, this inter- 
esting event was celebrated by the discharge of cannon, com- 
mencing at Buffalo, and continued along the line of the canal 
from Lake Erie to the Hudson. An immense number of 
people assembled at Albany ; and two canal boats, the " Sen- 
eca Chief" and "Young Lion of the West," from Buffalo, in 
which were the Governor and commissioners, State oflicers, 
and distinguished citizens of Albany, and other parts of the 
State, descended through the locks into the Albany basin, ac- 
companied with the acclamations of a vast crowd of exulting 
spectators. 

Clinton, as Governor of the State, had on the 4th of July, 



14 

1817, commenced the canals at the village of Eorae, with his 
own hands, and lived to sec them completed and put in suc- 
cessfal operation, while he was yet the Chief Magistrate ; and 
at a time when he had reached the summit of his fame as a 
man of genius, a statesman, and a patriot. What an enviable 
position had this great public benefactor attained ! He had 
immeasurably benefited and advanced the public interests of 
his own State, by attracting to it an amount of commerce, 
that has gone on increasing, and Avill continue to increase for 
centuries to come. 

But notwithstanding his patriotic devotion to the public 
service, the vast sources of wealth his genius had opened up 
to the enterprise of the citizens of New-York, and the unde- 
viating uprightness and purity of his character, while he was 
celebrating the great achievement of the canals, and confer- 
ring honors and riches upon our population, his unscrupulous 
opponents, the Bucktail bullies and Van Buren intriguers, his 
deadly enemies and political maligners of twenty-five years 
standing, were actively engaged among the people, urging them 
to abandon his standard, and unite in supporting what was in 
fact the Barnburner principles of the Bucktail party of 1825, 
which the huckstering politicians denominated the " Kepubli- 
can party," not unlike the spoil-hunters of our time, the Van 
Burens, the Fowlers, the Cochranes, the Eedfields, and other 
Short-boy politicians, who call their corrupt coalition of odds 
and ends, of shreds and patches, of ring-streaked, speckled 
and gray, of every shade of color and hue of political row- 
dies, marauders, renegades and cut-throats, the " Eepublican 
or Democratic party ! " When will this prostitution of a name 
cease ? 

Scarcely was this great State work completed, when the 
accumulating business attracted to it, demonstrated that its 
capacity, already too small, would, in after years, be entirely 
inadequate for the convenient transportation that would press 
for admission through its circumscribed channel. This was 
early foreseen by Clinton himself 

The enlightened and patriotic Gouverneur Morris, who was 
an enthusiastic supporter of Governor Clinton's canal policy, 
proposed to construct a ship canal of ample capacity, without 



15 

locks, from Lake Erie to the navigable waters of the Hudson ; 
so that ships might sail from the great inland waters of the 
west, directly down to the Atlantic Ocean. This was a bold 
project, at a period when the greatest part of the State was 
unsettled, and its whole population scarcely reached that 
now of the city of New-York ; when the whole valuation 
of all the taxable property in the State but little exceeded 
$200,000,000 ; when almost the entire States of Ohio, Indi- 
ana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were in a state of prim- 
itive wildness, and inhabited by little else than savages and 
beasts of prey ! Yet, Morris pressed this scheme to such a 
degree as produced some disagreement between him and other 
active friends of the canals, so that he subsequently withdrew, 
in a measure, his support from the plan that was ultimately 
adopted. 

Had the scheme of Morris, or that of Clinton, on an en- 
larged scale, been adopted in the commencement, it would 
have added millions upon millions of dollars to the State ; and 
the paltry political squabbles, waged by those opposed to the 
enlargement of the Erie canal, during the last twenty years, 
would have been obviated. 

It is, however, possible that, at that period, when the op- 
position to any canal was exceedingly violent, and our citi- 
zens comparatively poor, and but little acquainted with the 
utility of works of this kind, by attempting too much, the 
whole scheme might have fallen through, and nothing been 
accomplished. It is better, therefore, that the practical plan 
of Clinton, for carrying forward the work to completion, was 
adopted ; which, a1> an early day, and within the incredible 
short space of eight years from the commencement of the ca- 
nal, demonstrated in the most gratifying manner to this and 
other States, not only the practicability of constructing canals, 
but also, their great benefit to the public and private interests 
of our people. 

In the mean time, the business on our canals was rapidly 
increasing; lands in the western part of the State, and in 
other sections of it, which, previous to constructing the canals, 
were considered of little or no account, at once rose from one 
to five hundred per cent, in value. So was it, also, with re- 



16 

spect to the price of wheat and all agricultural productions ; 
while every thing that was required for consumption from 
abroad, by the western farmers and the inhabitants of the in- 
terior, along the line of canal, was reduced in price. The 
western and middle sections of the State were at once reaping 
a double advantage from the operations of our canals, while 
New- York city and its environs were immeasurably enriched 
by it. New towns sprung up along the banks of the canal, of 
which Syracuse is a shining example — the very creatures of 
the canal system, without which there would have been little 
more need of a city here, like what we now see, bustling with 
a busy population, and crowded with commerce, than exists 
for a similar city in the depths of the Dismal Swamp ! Turn 
from it your Erie canal, or "solidify it into solid rock," as 
Michael HoflPman once desired might be done, and tear up 
your railroad, (which is also a child of the canals — a thing 
that would not, in all probability, hav/C been constructed for 
fifty or a hundred years hence, had you not first constructed 
the canals, which have been the means of settling and subdu- 
ing this section of the State, and populating the western terri- 
tories, by bringing them within convenient proximity to a 
market,) and your fair city, like the gorgeous city of Venice, 
into whose voluptuous lap once poured the golden commerce 
of the East, would droop, crumble, and decay ! The busy 
streets would no longer manifest the activity of a lucrative and 
lively trade, would no longer ring with the happy voices of a 
numerous surrounding yeomanry, attracted hither with their 
products on the way to market, or as the most direct and con- 
venient mode of communicating with other sections of the 
Union. The enterprising, the young, and the active men of 
business, would seek more congenial fields of labor, and in a 
few years — in less time than has already been spent by un- 
scrupulous and corrupt politicians, wrangling against the comple- 
tion of the canals — there would be little to attract attention in 
the way of business in Syracuse, or in any of the flourishing 
towns that have sprung up along the line of the Erie canal. 

But happily no such state of things is likely to occur. 
Your flourishing city, and increasing towns and villages that 
surround it, as well as the numerous cities, villages, and large 



17 

establishments throughout the State, no less than the great 
interests of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, must go 
on increasing, so long as the paternal care of the State shall 
be extended with a liberal spirit of enlightened policy over its 
great internal improvements — the great system of canals, pro- 
jected and carried forward to completion by the incomparable 
genius and iron energy of De Witt Clinton, and which has 
warmed and quickened the energies of a mighty people, and 
thrown among them a degree of wealth, prosperity, and com- 
mercial importance, unequalled by all the other States of the 
Union. 

The question of the enlargement of the Erie canal began 
to present itself as a matter of necessity, even before the la- 
mented death of Clinton, which occurred suddenly on the 11th 
February, 1828 ; but nothing was definitely settled with re- 
gard to it, until 1835; when, in conformity with the recom- 
mendation of Gov. Marcy, a law was passed, authorizing the 
Canal Board to construct a double set of lift locks, and im- 
prove and enlarge the Erie canal. 

At a meeting of the Canal Board, soon after the passage of 
this law, it was unanimously resolved, that the " public inter- 
est requires the enlargement and improvement of the Erie ca- 
nal, and the construction of a double set of locks." The board 
at once designated the dimensions of the enlarged canal, and 
proceeded to let the contracts for doing the work. Every thing 
went smoothly on with the enlargement, until the close of Gov- 
ernor Marcy's administration, January 1, 1839 ; when, in conse 
quenceof the mismanagement of Martin Van Buren, who broke 
down the democratic party, and threw the reins of power into 
the hands of the whigs, it was, for the first time, since the pro- 
ject had been adopted, that certain old enemies of the canals 
discovered that this enlargement scheme was all wrong — calcu- 
lated to corrupt the people and ruin the State ! Though pre- 
viously its advocates, they now began to clamor, and finally 
took hostile grounds against it. This opposition, violent and 
incessant at first, did not culminate in virulence, until Van 
Buren was compelled to walk the plank, and quit the capitol 
at "Washington, in 1840, broken down politically, and forever 
disgraced. The opposition to enlargement went on accumalat- 
2 



18 

ing in bitterness and force, until the winter of 1842 ; when, 
owing to the unparalleled embarrassments of the monetary af- 
fairs of the commercial world, and, especially in this country, 
so much difficulty had occurred in raising funds, and so hos- 
tile and noisy were the Barnburner bullies, that the Legisla- 
ture, in an ill advised and evil moment, foolishly passed an act, 
suspending the enlargement entirely, and repudiating the con- 
tracts that had been sacredly entered into on the part of the 
State ! So successful were the industrious enemies of the 
public works, and so clamorous, that they really made the 
people believe that there was a necessity for the extraordinary 
wickedness which they had perpetrated, and that a tax of a 
mill and a half on the dollar, was needed to sustain the public 
credit ! No such state of things, as was represented through 
the lying Van Buren and Barnburner presses of that day, had 
any existence with respect to the canals ; which never did, 
and never can, impose any direct burden upon the exchequer 
of the State, if a fair management of their revenues is insisted 
on ; and provided, also, the tolls are not reduced unnecessarily 
low. 

On the 30th September, at the close of the fiscal year of 
1841, just three months previously to the meeting of the Legis- 
lature which unwisely put a stop to the prosecution of the 
public works, there was, after paying all the interest due on 
the public debt and all expenses of repairs and superintendence, 
and $64,850 89 for extraordinary land damages, and $200,000 
for the current expenses of the government, a surplus standing 
to the credit of the net revenues of the canals, of $605,751 061 
Had the canal debt at this time been $10,000,000 more than it 
actually was, there was yet more than enough net revenue 
remaining of the business operations of the canals of that year, 
to have paid promptly the interest on it ; and the canal reve- 
nues have been annually increasing ever since. 

With this state of facts before them, it is, indeed, difficult 
to see how men of intelligence and fair character, could be so 
blinded to the true interests of the State, as to join in with the 
clamorous and unscrupulous enemies of the canals and suspend 
their prosecution. 

This, however, was done ; and seriously mischievous have 
been the consequences that have ensued. 



19 

The battle was fought with various success between the 
friends and the enemies of enlargement, up to the meeting of 
the convention for revising the Constitution ; when, the Barn- 
burner bullies having the ascendency there, or rather, there 
being in the Convention more noisy managing Van Buren in- 
triguers than friends of the public works, the whole canal sys- 
tem was tied up in a manner, indicating very clearly, that the 
adversary had determined to put a final stop to any further 
progress in the enlargement or completion of the canals. 

This was the condition of the canals until the meeting of 
the Legislature of 1851 ; — the democratic party being in the 
mean time, split all to pieces by the perfidious conduct of the 
Van Buren bullies ; the whigs were in power, and undertook 
to pass an act providing for the speedy enlargement and com- 
pletion of the canals, by anticipating their surplus revenues, 
and basing upon them a loan of $9,000,000 for that purpose. 
To this proposition, of doubtful propriety, it would have been 
sufficient for honest men to have interposed a firm and manly 
opposition, and to have thrown the responsibility of the 
measure on the whigs, who were largely in the majority in 
both houses. The barnburner bullies and free-soil short-boys 
must make a sensation ; they could not prevent the passage 
of the act for the completion of the canals, and they concluded 
to resign ! They did so en masse, and broke up the Legisla- 
ture and had a new election ; and so far as any expression of 
the people was indicated, with regard to approval or disap- 
proval of the points at issue, it was decidedly against the revo- 
lutionary senators. The free-soil short-boys came back into 
the Senate, which was convened in extra session, with dimin- 
ished strength. 

The extra session in July, 1851, passed the act for complet- 
ing the canals, by a large majority. I never approved of 
this measure, myself, believing it unconstitutional and injudi- 
cious in some of its provisions, especially, its financial provi- 
sions ; which proposed to use the credit of the State in pro- 
curing a loan to carry on the work, in such manner as not to 
realize its market value. Nevertheless it was a law of the 
land. It provided for the speedy enlargement of the Erie 
and completion of the lateral canals, and all parties began to 



20 

think that we had, at last, reached the long dela3'ed period 
■when something would be done towards finishing the public 
works. Opposition, on the part of the barnburner faction, 
seemed to have died away. It had become the settled policy of 
the dominant party, and all seemed finally inclined to acqui- 
esce in it. 

In the mean time, the fall elections of 1851, were soon to 
come off' ; and the free-soilers, who were, by the coalition be- 
tween them and the spoil-hunters of the party, on the demo- 
cratic ticket, being anxious for an election and fearful that the 
people distrusted their honesty, came out voluntarily with a 
pledge, got up at the Atlas office in Albany, that, if elected, 
they would carry out, in good faith, all the provisions of the 
canal law, which, just at that time, they professed heartily to 
approve of. They had, however, no sooner got warm in their 
offices, than they began to cast round for means to upset the 
law and prevent the completion of the canals ! Their pledges 
to the people, they cared nothing about. They regarded those 
pledges to execute the law for the completion of the canals, 
just as they do the Baltimore platform and President Pierce's 
inaugural — as shadows to spit on. They never intended to 
execute the law ; they meant from first to last, and the whole 
barnburner faction and Van Buren bullies mean still, to defeat 
all measures for finishing the public works. 

Thus the question stood till the fall election of 1852 ; when 
Mr. Seymour, being in the field as the coalition candidate for 
governor, took the stump, declaring his friendship for the 
public works. But when his message was sent into the Legis- 
lature, all his friends favorable to the completion of the canals, 
were much surprised and perplexed at the vague and unsatis- 
factory manner in which he alluded to the subject of complet- 
ing the canals. He can hardly be said to have recommended 
any plan whatever, for carrying out the enlargement, unless 
his suggestions, humorously denominated the scratching and 
tickling plan, be such ; which, really, if adopted, would not be 
likely to redound very much to the credit of the Governor nor 
prove of any great advantage to the revenues of the canals or 
the convenience of commerce. 

Under these embarrassing circumstances, with a view of 



21 

disposing satisfiictorily of this exciting question, which had so 
often been pronounced upon by the people, and with an 
honest intention of sustaining, so far as it could possibly be 
done, the position taken by the Governor, a resolution was, 
on the second day of the last session, introduced in the Senate, 
and passed that body almost unanimously, referring so much 
of the Governor's message as related to the subject of the 
canals, to ajoint select committee of the two houses, with in- 
structions to report by bill, providing for the speedy enlarge- 
ment of the Erie, and the early completion of the lateral 
canals. 

From the large majority in favor of this resolution in the 
Senate, it was hoped by the friends of the canals, as well as 
those who desired the union of the democratic party, that it 
might meet with equal favor before the Assembly ; and that 
some feasible plan for completing the canals would be adopted, 
and that question be withdrawn from the arena of party poli- 
tics, where it had so long been scuffled over by demagogues 
and political hucksters, much to the detriment of the public 
interest, and seriously injurious to the commercial convenience 
of our citizens. Unhappily, however, these reasonable hopes 
were not realized. A settled determination to defeat the 
measure at all hazards, was most palpably manifest on the 
part of nearly all the Barnburner bullies, who were set on and 
headed by the Speaker of the House, although he had pro- 
mised the mover of the resolution and other Senators and 
friends of the canals, that he would support the proposition 
for a final disposition of this question. 

At first, so strong was the sentiment in favor of the canals, 
in and out of the Legislature, it was supposed that the resolu- 
tion would pass the Assembly, notwithstanding the bitter 
hostility manifested on the part of the implacable adversaries; 
who, in discussing the question before the House, not only 
inveighed bitterly against the resolution, but ungenerously 
attacked the mover of it, and unjustly maligned his motives. 

The debate went on for weeks, increasing in virulence, 
unfairness, and abuse, until the barnburner bullies and free- 
soil foes to the completion of the canals became ferocious. 
Their press-gang scavengers, and camp-followers of party, 



22 

were loudly invoked for aid. These, with the Governor and 
the State officers, entered the lobby against the resolution, 
which was defeated, after a severe struggle, by the casting 
vote of the Speaker ! 

When this result was known in the Senate, Judge Van- 
derbilt introduced a resolution proposing an amendment of 
the Constitution, for the purpose of completing the canals out 
of their surplus revenues, and without imposing onerous 
taxes on the people for that purpose. This reasonable project 
met with scarcely so much favor from the barnburner bullies 
as that which had just been lost by their opposition to it in 
the Assembly. Senator Vanderbilt, and his plan for com- 
pleting the unfinished canals, at once became the target of 
attack from the enemies of the public works in the Legisla- 
ture, no less than from all the unscrupulous barnburner 
presses throughout the State. For months, these unprincipled 
Short-boy adversaries to the internal improvement system of 
Clinton, which has so largely enriched the State, and conferred 
such lasting honor upon the memory of its projector, fought 
Avith the virulence and desperation of fiends against the plan 
proposed by Mr. Yanderbilt; contending inch by inch against 
every step that was taken with a view to amend the Constitu- 
tion, which they declared should remain in statu quo 
through all coming time as a sacred monument, reared by the 
Convention of 1846, to the memory of Michael Hoffman! 
But, however strenuously the amendment, proposed by Mr. 
Vanderbilt, was contested by the barnburner desperadoes in 
the Senate, it passed that body by a large majority, and was 
sent down to the Assembly, where, as all the friends of the 
measure feared, it was thrown out and lost, through the in- 
flexible opposition to it on the part of the sworn enemies of 
canals. 

Notwithstanding these circumstances, when the free-soil 
members returned from their constituents, after the recess, to 
resume their seats in the extra session of the Legislature, so 
strong did they find the canal sentiment pervading all classes 
of community, that they found it necessary to change, in 
appearance at least, the ground they had previously occupied 
in opposition to the public works. 



23 

They now pretended to be in favor of amending the Con- 
stitution; went strongly for the " Vanderbilt plan "for fin- 
ishing the canals, and wound up by claiming that plan as a 
very wise and commendable scheme of their oivn ! 

These, in brief, are the circumstances that you have to 
contemplate, as connected with a great public interest, in 
which you, as a community and as individuals, have as large 
a stake as any equal number of our fellow citizens in the 
State. And now I ask you, in conclusion of this branch of 
my remarks, whether it is possible or safe for you to trust 
these unscrupulous, swindling Barnburner bullies and plun- 
derers any further with the management of your affairs, after 
their so often repeated and flagrant betrayal of the confidence 
that has been placed in them ? 

These men, or their party tools, are now before you, ask- 
ing again for your suffrages that they may still cling to the 
patronage and spoils of office ; and that they may consum- 
mate their wicked schemes of plunder and disruption of the 
Union ! You must decide this question for yourselves ; it is 
a sovereign right with which no power on earth can interfere. 
But, while this right to decide for himself, as to whom he will 
give his suffrage, is a conceded, absolute right, belonging to 
every American citizen, he should not be unmindful that it 
carries along with it responsibilities of a high character, with 
respect to the manner in which he shall exercise that sacred 
right. He may not, with impunity and without injustice to 
those who may come after him, nor without doing violence to 
a common sentiment, become instrumental in the elevation of 
reckless, unprincipled men, aiming, in every act of their lives, 
to overreach their fellow citizens, to plunder the State and 
overthrow the government. It becomes, therefore, a matter 
of no incurious or unimportant inquiry, to investigate the 
claims of the Short-boy nominees — to look these Barnburner 
bullies, "free men and witnesses," full in the face, and de- 
mand wherefore they come before the people, with their lips 
blistered with lies, their hearts black with deception, and 
their every feature smothered with treachery, asking, nay, 
claiming and even fighting for the places of honor and trust 
that can never be safely confided to them ? The question is 



24 

not so much whether this or that party sliall assume the reins 
of power ; whether this or that sentiment shall have the as- 
cendency, nor whether this or that ism shall attract to its in- 
culcators the most attention ; nor, indeed, is it confined to the 
simple consideration of whether or not our system of internal 
improvements shall be sustained, and our canals be complet- 
ed or go to decay. It is one of much more vital consequence 
to every American citizen ; to every father who has a son or 
a daughter to educate ; to every mother who regards her off- 
spring with a mother's tenderness and love; to every child 
who has a parent to adore and obey. It is whether this 
country shall hereafter be governed by a system of laws, af- 
fording equal protection to all its citizens, as hitherto, in the 
better days of the republic, or whether it is hereafter to be 
ruled by violence and brute force ; by ruffians, bullies and 
pugilistic marauders ; by bandits and desperadoes ; such 
wretches as were transported here a few days since from the 
city of New- York, by Cochrane, Eowler, Van Buren and 
Redfield, and backed by the Governor and the State officers, 
as " free men and witnesses," for the purpose of overawing 
and controlling the proceedings of the State Convention; and, 
if necessary, in order to effect that object, to assassinate the 
peaceable and respectable delegates sent here by an unbiased 
and confiding people ! That, fellow citizens, is the great and 
important question which you have, in fact, to settle at the 
polls by the suffrages that you shall give at the coming elec- 
tion. This question you must meet full in the face. You 
cannot avoid it if you would. Its all pervading necessity im- 
pels itself upon you in every relation of life ; in your families 
and in your fields; in your counting-houses and in your 
courts of justice ; in your shops and in your manufactories ; 
every where it meets you and presses home to every man's 
business and bosom, demanding, with the impressive voice of 
patriotism, an immediate and satisfactory solution. Will you 
sii rink from it? Dare you shrink from its encounter fairly 
and fully at this crisis in the affairs of your country? 

The " union and harmony " rowdies, with their Short-boy 
adjuncts, with Redfield, Cochrane, and Fowler at their head, 
and Van Buren, Cassidy, Wright, and Seymour at their tail. 



25 

make their advent here in your quiet and well ordered city 
for the purpose, as they pretend, of meeting in convention 
the delegates regularly chosen by the people to nominate 
State officers. None of these Short-boy or ofTice-holding 
" free men and witnesses," as they are called, had the shadow 
of a title to a seat in the convention. Then why were they 
here ? For what purpose did they rush into the hall like a 
pack of wolves, howling and hooting at the top of their 
voices, and carrying confusion and disorder wherever they 
polluted the atmosphere with their profanity and the fumes of 
bestial dissipation ? 

Why did Eedfield, Cochrane, and Fowler, leave the duties 
of their responsible offices to attend the State convention ? 
For what purpose were Governor Seymour, John C, Wright, 
Levi S. Chatfield, and other officers of the State and 
national administrations, here on that memorable occa- 
sion ? They were not delegates ; why were they here ? 
Cochrane, an officer of General Pierce, says they were here 
as "freemen and witnesses," to promote "union and harmo- 
ny" in the democratic party, and to "speak by authority ! " 
"Speak by authority!" An officer of the general govern- 
ment speaking by authority in a convention of the citizens 
of the State of New -York ! 

What authority has the President of the United States to 
speak by his minions, or even in person, in a convention of 
this or any other State, convened for the nomination of its 
local officers? Who ever heard of this assumption of au- 
thority on the part of a President of the Union before? We 
utterly repudiate and contemn all such authority on the part 
of the officers of the general government; whether it be 
General Pierce himself, or his low sutlers, scavengers, and 
camp-followers, on whom he has so unwisely lavished nearly 
the whole patronage of his administration. We care not a 
rush for General Pierce or any other ephemeral emblem of 
power, belonging to the State or national administration, no 
longer than such typical incumbent of a temporary position 
shall manifest sufficient respect for his own official standing 
to show a decent regard for the feelings and rights of those 
to whom he is mostly indebted for the exalted station which 
he so signallv fails to adorn. 



26 

I care not whether this be declared from the house-top, or 
the steps of the capitol at Washington, so lately the pedestal 
where General Pierce harangued a multitude, in a noisy, pom- 
pous stump speech, denominated the " President's Inaugural." 
If General Pierce demeans himself as a sensible, sober man, 
occupying the distinguished station to which he has been 
raised, he will be entitled to, and will receive, the respect and 
consideration, from the people who have placed him in of&ce, 
that is due to the President of the United States. If, howev- 
er, he chooses to sink the high dignity of his exalted position 
down to the low level of blackguards, short-boys, rowdies, 
pugilists, gamblers, drunkards, and political hucksters, on 
whom he has already bestowed too large a share of govern- 
ment patronage, and attempts to exercise an unwarrantable 
authority, through such detestable creatures, in our local af- 
fairs, he must expect to be looked upon, himself, as on a level 
with the companions he chooses for his associates, and be con- 
tent to receive the same meed of disapprobation with which 
they are, every where, by all good citizens, justly regarded. 
The office of President of the United States, nor any office 
in the gift of the President, cannot, of itself, make a man re- 
spectable who chooses to cling to, and. associate with rowdies, 
disorganizcrs, bandits, and partisan pugilists. Nor can it 
make an honest man of one who is naturally, and of his own 
volition, a blackhearted, ungrateful traitor. General Pierce 
has yet, I doubt not, sense enough remaining, to comprehend 
the full force and truth of this assertion. No one, I venture 
to say, whether he be a political opponent, or partisan sup- 
porter of the President, was inclined to find fault with Gen- 
eral Pierce. On the contrary, all were disposed to regard the 
incoming administration with a spirit of liberality, so far as 
its policy and its acts entitled it to approval. His inaugural, 
as a declaration of the principles laid down by General Pierce, 
for the guidance of his administration, was generally well re- 
ceived. No part of the American people appeared to be par- 
ticularly dissatisfied with the principles it embraced, or the 
manner in which they were declared, except the Van Buren 
factionists, and the Barnburner bullies, who recently came 
here with their Short-boy companions, and, as they declared. 



27 

" by authority from Washington," broke up the Democratic 
Convention, and converted the quiet town of Syracuse into a 
disgraceful arena of pugilism and slung-shot dexterity. 

These desperadoes, who, in 1848, defeated Gen. Cass by 
uniting their strength, such as it was, with the abolitionists 
(whom they subsequently betrayed), and the renegade whigs 
who joined that nefarious coalition, manifested at the time of 
its appearance, a good deal of uneasiness and dissatisfaction 
with the inaugural of General Pierce. Entertaining the dis- 
organizing and detestable sentiments they do, they had some 
reason for apprehension, for those of their ilk, not then in the 
secret of the programme of the President, believed, with the 
democrats who had always stood by the compromise measures 
and the Constitution, that the sounding declarations of General 
Pierce, as put forth in his stump speech inaugural, really 
meant something. They thought at first, as did the true 
friends of the President, that his political antecedents were 
such as to entitle him to belief as a man of truth and veracity. 
They had not the remotest idea then, that General Pierce in- 
tended so soon to repudiate, by his own suicidal acts, the 
principles he laid down in his inaugural. They never dreamed 
of such a foolish absurdity on the part of the President of the 
United States; for the reason that they were not then ap- 
prised of the President's policy, which was not in any degree 
developed in the inaugural. With the exception of this sin- 
gular clique of malcontents, who have subsequently been so 
much warmed into executive favor, people generally were 
satisfied with the new President, and wished well to his ad- 
ministration. It appeared to be the settled opinion of con- 
servative, well demeaned men of all political parties, that the 
country had made a fortunate escape from the mischievous 
designs of the opponents of General Pierce, whose candidate 
for the Presidency, though a highly honorable veteran soldier, 
who had fought gloriously in the cause of freedom, was sup- 
posed to be so much under the control and dictation of certain 
whig free-soilers, as, in case of his election, to endanger, by the 
policy his subtle advisers might induce him to adopt, the sta- 
bility of the Union, and possibly upset the government. 

How little did men of this opinion foresee that, by the 



28 

election of General Pierce, this country was likely to fall into 
the same difficulty, which they so assiduously endeavored to 
avoid by the rejection of General Scott ! 

When the famous inaugural came from Washington, a set 
of resolutions indorsing it were introduced into the Assembly 
by Hon. Daniel B. Taylor ; but the Speaker being a rowdy, 
unscrupulous Short-boy, who had no regard for the rules of 
the House, and accustomed to rule with palpable injustice 
towards all the members whom he failed to corrupt and in- 
veigle into his deceptive political meshes, interposed such 
obstacles to the efforts of Mr. Taylor, that it was a long time 
before he could get his inaugural-indorsement resolutions up 
for consideration. When he at last succeeded and brought 
the question of their adoption or rejection to a vote, the Short- 
boy Speaker left the chair with all his Barnburner bullies, 
and fled from the House with as much precipitation as people 
living in tropical climates, sometimes quit their dwellings at 
the sound of an earthquake ! They would not vote upon 
them at all. They regarded them as directly in conflict with 
their political faith, the articles of which were to be found in 
the Buffalo platform ; but no part of them could they, at that 
time, discover in the inaugural of General Pierce. The reso- 
lutions of Mr. Taylor, indorsing the inaugural, were, never- 
theless, passed in the Assembly by a handsome majority, 
many of the whigs voting in the affirmative, as well they 
might, for no sane man could discover much that was objec- 
tionable in them, or the document they sanctioned. The 
stampeders, however, thought they discovered " a negro in 
the fence," so they " cut stick, and ran ! " 

Mr. John Yan Buren, a few days since, at a Barnburner Free- 
Soil fizzle, called a ratification meeting of the "softs," got up by 
some of his bowie-knife and slung-shot "freemen and witnesses," 
at the Capitol in Albany, in repeating his famous empty- barrel- 
head itinerant speech of the memorable free-soil campaign of 
1848, with some modifications^ paid what he called "his re- 
spects" to me, and undertook to define my position, to desig- 
nate my political relations and affinities, to place me on the 
whig platform, as this great Edile of the Buffalo and other 
platform constructions has recently undertaken to transfer 



29 

the abolition and free-soil whig coalition of 18-48 from tlie 
celebrated platform of tliat day to that of Baltimore, some- 
what after the manner the automaton chess-player moves the 
various pieces on the board to win the " spoils." 

In his fabulous fanfaronade of flummery and falsehood, 
spewed out in the vestibule of the Capitol, (which, from a 
report of it in that loathsome sewer of short-boy fdth, called 
the "Albany Evening Atlas," was evidently intended to be, 
on paper, a funny thing, it being at almost every other line 
interlarded with — " laughter," "applause," "great laughter," 
"renewed laughter," "roars of laughter," "laughter," "great 
applause," "laughter," "laughter and applause," "renewed 
applause and laughter," and finally closing the melancholy 
diatribe with " great applause," but which, I understand, was 
rather a gloomy affjxir,) John says : 

" The course of Mr. Cooley, who, during the last session, 
voted steadily with the whigs, must show you that he never 
intended to act with the democrats," 

Again, John remarks, in connection with his vulgar fabri- 
cations, while coarsely commenting on the free-soil impeach- 
ment trial of John C. Mather : " I shall probably have occasion 
at some other time to speak of the Judge, who is on the 
same ticket, and who voted this gentleman innocent — Mr. 
Cooley, and of the counsel, Mr. Brady, who defended him, 
and is now on the same ticket with him ; but, for the present, 
it is sufficient to call your attention to these gentlemen just to 
show you what kind of people they use for breaking up the 
democratic party, how far they are steeped in corruption, and 
what the contest is that you have to meet." 

Thus, this short-boy vagrant, after assuming the character 
of every conceivable shade, stripe, and hue of all political 
parties; after uniting his fortunes with every imaginable 
waif, shred, and patch of political cabals, squads, and factions, 
as he and his father did, in 18-i8, in order to break down the 
democratic party, and defeat General Cass, the democratic 
nominee for the presidency ; after appearing in every charac- 
ter, and under every despicable phase of party; after attempt- 
ing to be " every thing by turns," but, in effect, accomplishing 
nothing but mischief, this profligate politician, in his fulsome 



30 

falsehoods, of which he reHeved himself in the Capitol, has 
the brazen-faced impudence to call me, who have never failed 
nor faltered in the cause of democracy ; and have always 
been with the party through evil and through good report, 
"no democrat!" — to accuse me with "having voted steadily 
with the whigs ! " 

When did I ever vote on political questions with any 
other than the democratic party ? " Voted steadily with the 
whigs ! " says this common slanderer ! I recollect very well 
that the whigs " voted very steadily" with me, on my motions 
to defeat certain short-boy nominations of Governor Sey- 
mour, who were, I am told, the slung-shot companions of 
John Van Buren; among whom was one Briggs, who was 
nominated, if I remember correctly, for Salt Inspector — an 
office of some little responsibility and importance in this 
county. I recollect the circumstance quite distinctly ; and, to 
say nothing of the effect of his defeat on the nominee him- 
self, I understand that it annoyed Governor Seymour and the 
eloquent floodgate of slung-shot falsehoods, John Van Buren, 
most prodigiously. But the nominee having been represented 
in the Senate as a public delinquent, I felt it to be my duty, 
however it might affect the gentleman himself, and his pugi- 
listic friend, John Van Buren, and the Governor, to defeat his 
nomination ; and the whigs did me the favor to vote with me 
for the accomplishment of that desirable object. 

I am told that the gentleman has since threatened to meet 
me at "Philippi." And, should I ever take it into my head 
to go to " Philippi," I suppose I shall have the pleasure to 
meet the gentleman there ; though I am sorry to say that I 
hardly think I shall be able to make a journey to that noted 
place expressly for that purpose. 

John, moreover, charges me, in the Short-boy performance, 
which I have had occasion to allude to and quote from, with 
being "steeped in corruption!" 

Having been in the free-soil teapot of Barnburner villany, 
" steeping in corruption/' almost from the cradle up to the 
moment of exuding his late calumnies at the Capitol, against 
Daniel S. Dickinson, Mr. Brady, Judge Vanderbilt, and al- 
most every respectable Democrat in the State, I have no sort 



81 

of doubt, whatever, of his thorough acquaintance with corrup- 
tion of the most corrupt and rotten description ; if not, I can 
only say, that thirty or forty years " steeping " him in it, and 
testing its quahty in its various stages, have been lavished on 
him in that line, to very little purpose. 

So much for John Van Buren, "Prince John," as he is 
sometimes derisively called ; much such a kind of prince, I 
suppose, as is the ruler of the pit — " the prince of devils," the 
" prince of humbugs," and the " prince of liars," He is now, 
I am told, perambulating the State, boasting that he has got 
" Bronson's head in a basket ! " reminding one forcibly of an- 
other profligate prostitute of ancient times, who was seen with 
a very good man's "head in a charger," which, to gratify a 
base passion, had been severed by order of a drunken Gover- 
nor of Judea, at a bacchanalian banquet, given at the " White 
House," or bestial mansion of that wicked prince, near Jeru- 
salem, The parallel between the characters of both the pos- 
sessors of the head of John the Baptist and Bronson the Col- 
lector, no less than of the two deluded rulers, wdio unwisely 
ordered the unoifending victims to the block, is too manifestly 
striking not to impress upon the mind of every one the mel- 
ancholy truth, that "when the wicked rule, the people 
mourn," 

" Bronson's head in a basket ! " says this itinerant polluted 
speech filter of Short-boy obscenity as he swings his listless length 
from one Barnburner squad to another, jeering and scoffing at 
the stern virtues, patriotism, and the unwavering political 
principles of the man, who, to appease the urgent demands 
of John and his mean associates in political profligacy, was 
victimized and martyred by the unhallowed hands of treachery 
and imbecility ! 

" Bronson's head in a basket ! ' ' And why has Bronson been 
singled out, of all the nominees of the President, for the sacri- 
fice — for the victim to give hilarity and mirth to the reckless 
band of filibusteros, who now, and always have, enjoyed more 
of General Pierce's confidence than all the members of the 
National democratic party put together? What reason do 
the high functionaries at Washington, who are evidently giddy 
with the reins of power, temporarily placed in their hands by 



32 

a confiding people, give for summarily "demanding the head 
of Bronson!" for ejecting that highly accomplished, pure- 
minded, patriotic man, from the office of Collector of the port 
of New- York — an office which he never sought, and only con- 
sented to accejjt to oblige the President, and relieve him from 
an unpleasant embarrassment ; and which he has filled with 
so much satisfaction to the country, and so much honor to 
himself! Why was this done? What great political prin- 
ciple is to be favorably affected by it, or what important ques- 
tion of public policy is to be advanced by it ? What is the 
secret of this high-handed outrage of President Pierce, accom- 
panied by the vituperative and shameless missive of insult, 
vulgarity, and coarseness, hurled from the office of the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, at the unoffending head of the Collector, 
as it fell into the Judas-Iscariot basket, or bag, of John Van 
Buren, by command of a fifth-rate country court, pettifogger 
of New Hampshire, who, by accident simply, happened to 
reach an exalted position, only to abuse its power. Why, 
again, I ask, was the head of the victim called for, and the 
slaughter demanded ? 

It was simply because Judge Bronson had the independent 
manliness to indicate to the unscrupulous cabal of Tammany 
Hall, who had insultingly and with characteristic effrontery, 
undertaken to use his great name as a decoy in furtherance of 
their intrigues against the democratic party, that he should 
exercise an inalienable right, of which no power on earth, but 
that of a revolution, can deprive him or any other citizen of 
this State — the right of suffrage, in support of the regularly no- 
minated democratic ticket, instead of the short-boy nomina- 
tions, which he utterly repudiated and entirely disapproved 
of. That is the true reason ; that is the whole amount of the 
collector's offending, from beginning to end ; for which he 
has been so unhandsomely used by the President, and so base- 
ly traduced and jeered at by the minions of power and John 
Van Buren, who scoffingly itinerates through the rural dis- 
tricts, diffusing his falsehoods, and boasts that he has " Bron- 
son's head in a basket ! " That is the true reason ; and that 
is the only reason. If any man doubts it, he will have abun- 
dant evidence to relieve his mind from anv further doubt 



33 

on this subject, by reading from the Washington Union of 
October 23, 1853, the recognized official organ of General 
Pierce, an editorial article, headed "THE PRESIDENT'S 
POLICY VINDICATED— OFFICIAL INSUBORDINA- 
TION DISCOUNTEiNTANCED— FACTIOUS DISORGA- 
NIZATION REBUKED ! " from which I beg leave to quote 
a few striking extracts, which will not fail to make the truth 
of my assertion very clearly manifest. 

" It will be remembered that the first act of Collector 
Bronson which attracted public attention to his position, was 
his letter to the Tammany committee, in which he avowed 
his determination to support the ticket on which were the 
names of James E. Cooley, for Comptrollor, and James T. 
Brady, for Attorney General. Before the assembling of the 
convention which nominated these gentlemen, they had as- 
sumed an attitude of hostility to the administration ^which 
placed them as clearly in the opposition as if they had openly 
assumed the name of whigs. To show the real import of the 
action of the convention in nominating these gentlemen, and 
of the support given to them by Mr. Bronson, we will turn 
for a moment to some of their antecedents. 

" On the 2d June, 1853, Mr. Cooley delivered an elaborate 
speech in the New- York Senate, in which he denounced, in 
unmeasured terms, that portion of the democratic party which 
had supported Mr. Van Buren in 1848, and charged that their 
recognition as national democrats by President Pierce was a 
violation of the sentiments declared by him in his letter to 
Major Lally, and in his Inaugural Address. 

" Mr. Cooley said that President Pierce had been faithless 
to all his professions concerning the compromise measures ! 
He had called around him the men who had sought to destroy 
the Union. He had deserted all his principles, and he (Mr. 
C.) denounced him as having forsaken the doctrines of his 
former votes, and all the declarations upon which the demo- 
cratic party had elected him. He has disappointed the coun- 
try — disappointed all his friends— by calling around him men 
who, in 1848, had attempted to overturn the Union. The 
very nullifiers and disorganizers were astonished at the length 
to which he had gone." 
3 



34 

" Mr. Brady had acted as the presiding officer of a demo- 
cratic club in the city of New- York ; but before the meeting 
of the Syracuse convention he resigned his position, and as- 
signed his reasons in a letter from which the following is an 
extract : 

" ' It is obviously one of the designs of the club to support, 
with its characteristic zeal, the present national and State adminis- 
trations. — Perceiving, as I do, how my feelings and opinions 
may render it necessary for me to look beyond, and perhaps 
operate against the individuals ivho may sway these administrations, 
that the integrity of the true democratic party may be pre- 
served — •! am compelled to withdraw from a station in which 
the conflict of obligation to my associates and duty to my con- 
science might expose me to unpleasant trials. ' " 

" Foreseeing that the club would support the administra- 
tion with its characteristic zeal, Mr. Brady chose to resign, 
because \i\& feelings and opinions might render it necessary for 
him to operate against the individuals swaying the administra- 
tion. What Mr. Brady meant by this letter was more fully 
and distinctly avowed in his speech recently made before the 
Young Men's Democratic Club. We quote from it the follow- 
ing : 

" * Whenever any public man, false to the duties of the 
station he occupies, seeks to convert his office into a mere in- 
strument for promoting the selfish schemes of his followers or 
himself, be it our desire and effort to discomfit and disgrace 
him. And when a man high in position, who is supposed to 
partake in some degree of the large and noble sentiments 
which sway our people, stoops from the eminence he should 
aim at adorning, to wield his influence in gratifying the re- 
venge of disappointed ambition, or to appease the clamors of 
mercenary politicians, we will expose and denounce him as 
an object of hatred and of scorn. — [Great applause.] Some 
individuals at Washington now invested with authority, which 
the people gave, and which the people can take away, suppose 
that a President and his cabinet may dictate to the democratic 
party in this State how they should exercise their political 
power. We will teach them a lesson, as we have already 
taught one to Yan Buren.— [Applause.] We will wait pa- 



35 

tiently, but witli stern resolution, for the time to instruct those 
usurpers that offices and honors belong not to the incumbents, 
but to the people, and that we wage a war of extermination 
against all politicians, in or out of office, who would exercise 
the power of government to intimidate the humblest citizen 
in the exercise of his rights. Franklin Pierce and Mr. Guthrie 
have no unsatisfied claims on this country. — [Applause.] The 
existence of the talents of neither is essential to our progress or 
prosperity. We could fill their places to-morrow with abler 
and better men ; and we here warn them, that if they continue 
to be led by the wily and corrupt Marcy, we will assign them, 
and all who unite with them in their despicable political 
treachery, to the impoteucy they will so richly deserve. ' " 

" With sentiments of hostility to the administration like 
those openly avowed by these two gentlemen, they were se- 
lected by the inconsiderable fraction of the convention which 
met in the Globe Hotel as two of their most prominent standard- 
bearers. If it were legitimate to doubt whether the nomina- 
tion of Messrs. Cooley and Brady was an indorsement of their 
opposition to the administration, that doubt would vanish in 
view of the fact, that the convention studiously avoided the 
adoption of any resolution approving its policy. This was 
not an accidental omission, but a premeditated act of hostility, 
rendered the more significant from the fact that the design of 
thus assailing the administration had been previously charged 
upon the leading men of the "convention. We shall not dis- 
cuss the questions as to the organization of the two conven- 
tions at Syracuse. It is enough to know that those who nom- 
inated Messrs. Brady and Cooley were distinctly notified that 
the other convention was prepared to adopt the most satisfac- 
tory platform, and to appiwe the policy of the administration. 
With this notification the friends of Messrs. Cooley and Brady 
declined to act in concert with them, but chose to adopt a 
platform in which the approval of the policy of the administra- 
tion was omitted. The facts are conclusive to the point that 
this portion of the convention assembled with the fixed pur- 
pose of making a separate organization, and the basis of that 
organization was opposition to the administration. This was 
shown not only by the fact that there is no difference in the 



36 

two platforms, except as to an indorsement of the policy of 
tlie administration, and by the fact that the friends of Messrs. 
Cooley and Brady knew beforehand that this would be the 
only point of difference ; it is shown by the fact that, with the 
knowledge that Messrs. Cooley and Brady were openly and 
bitterly hostile to the administration, they were selected as the 
nominees of that portion of the convention. 

******* 

"With all these facts before him. Collector Bronson en- 
tered the field as an active and zealous advocate of that organ- 
ization which stands stamped, in its origin, and in every step 
of its progress, with hostility to the administration. By his 
letter to the Tammany committee he threw all the weight of 
his high judicial as well as his high official character and 
station in opposition to the administration ; and when rebuked 
for his disregard of the known policy of the President, he 
comes forward in a spirit of arrogant defiance, and rebels 
against the authority of his superiors in office. This letter of 
Mr. Bronson completes the chain of evidence, and presents 
him before the country in the same attitude of open hostility 
which had been previously assumed by Messrs. Cooley and 
Brady. 

" We do not suppose that it has ever occurred to any sen- 
sible man that the President could for a moment tolerate such 
insubordination as Mr. Bronson exhibits in his letter to Mr. 
Guthrie. We cannot suppose for an instant that Mr. Bronson 
could have calculated on retaining his office after such an act 
of insubordination. He has evidently sought the sympathy 
which always attaches to the fate of the martyr; but he 
should have remembered that sympathy in the manly bosom 
is alone reserved for those who make sacrifices for their coun- 
try or for principle, not for men who are animated by selfish 
objects and bow to the demands of passion and prejudice." 

Here is the proof, strong as holy writ, that the delirious 
occupant of the " White House," and his inflated Cabinet at 
Washington, have undertaken the rather difficult task, I ap- 
prehend, of controlling the local elections of this State! 

Secretary Guthrie's letter, transmitting to Judge Bronson 
the notice of his removal, indicates only the pretext for that 



3T 

injudicious and unjustifiable act, while the editor of the Union, 
in apologetically laying the whole subject before the public, 
letters and all, gives, beyond every peradventure, the real 
motive which instigated the perpetration of the deed. 

And, fellow-citizens, what a pitiful spectacle does this 
paltry meddling, on the part of the President of the United 
States, with our local State politics, present for the contem- 
plation of a great, intelligent, free and independent nation ! 
Its President stooping down from the height of his exalted 
station, and so far forgetting the dignity of that position, no 
less than what is due to his own character as an honorable 
man, while occupying it, as to mix up with the party State 
squabbles of the day, and attempt to control the feuds which 
now unhappily agitate and disturb the once harmonious ranks 
of the democracy of this commonwealth ! How are the Presi- 
dent and his cabinet belittled and lowered in the estimation of 
all honorable men, if any thing now could have that effect, by 
such reprehensible, undignified, unmanly, and despicable con- 
duct! Every where in and out of this State, throughout the 
whole length and breadth of the land, except with the Short- 
boy bullies and slung-shot incendiaries, the cut-throats, ban- 
dits and filibusteros of Tammany Hall, and their pressgang 
adherents, the unjustifiable removal of Judge Bronson is con- 
demned as a flagrant outrage on the spotless purity of that 
gentleman's character, and a violation of public trust injurious 
to the interests of the Union, and an act of ingratitude and 
injustice, revolting to the moral sense of every high-minded 
and honorable man. The President and his cabinet, however, 
have taken upon themselves the responsibility of the high- 
handed measure of dictating, to all the subordinate function- 
aries of the federal government, the political affinities of men 
for whom they may or may not be allowed to cast their votes, 
and yet retain office under the administration of General 
Pierce, who, so recently, in his stump speech, delivered from 
the steps of the Capitol, pompously declared to the American 
people, that: 

"K the Federal Government will confine itself to the ex- 
ercise of powers clearly granted by the Constitution, it can 
hardly happen that its action upon any question should en- 



38 

danger the institutions of the States, or interfere with their 
right to manage matters strictly domestic according to the will 
of their own people." 

This, however, like the rest of the sounding verbiage in 
that political fulmination of the President, was intended, as 
his subsequent conduct has very clearly indicated, merely for 
parade and stage effect ; a sort of star-spangled banner per- 
formance, just to amuse the multitude who had gathered around 
the General on that occasion, out of sheer curiosity to see 
what kind of a lion had at last got into the presidency, and 
taken possession of the White House. 

Should this bad measure of the present administration be 
successfully carried out by General Pierce and his free-soil 
firiends, its baneful, demoralizing effects cannot fail to be pain- 
fully apparent to every reflecting man who has given the 
slightest attention to the subject. A great centralized power, 
such as that evidently aimed at by the Cabinet at "Washing- 
ton, reaching out on every hand, and penetrating the utmost 
verge and the most secluded corners of every part of the Ee- 
public, through the instrumentality of myriads of its depend- 
ent agents, moulded and formed to anticipate, in their official 
and social relations with the people, the extreme views of the 
government, must of necessity break down eventually all the 
advantages likely to result from the free suffrages of a people^ 
and, finally, sap the foundations of civil and religious freedom. 
When such men as Judge Bronson are proscribed by the Pre- 
sident of the United States, and turned out of office with a 
scurrilous and rebukeful missive hurled after them from a 
subordinate department of the government, simply on account 
of having expressed a prefereu' e for one set of men over an- 
other, to fill local offices, it is high time for those who have 
contributed to the elevation of men to positions of power, 
capable of such flagrant and glaring outrages, to pause and 
contemplate the pernicious consequences that are likely to re- 
sult to our institutions and our rights as citizens, looking up 
for protection to a system of equitable laws, which should be 
administered in a spirit of justice and enlightened patriotism. 

If the President supposed that this act of violence and ma- 
levolent ingratitude, done, not only to Judge Bronson himself. 



39 

but intended, also, as it was, to outrage and insult the just 
sentiment of all liis numerous friends, wlio, with Judge Bron- 
son, contributed so largely and cordially towards the elevation 
of General Pierce, was to pass unrebuked, and without meet- 
ing the unqualified condemnation of an incensed and injured 
community, he has already discovered more than enough, in 
the journals of the day, which teem with expressions of indig- 
nation at this unwise act, to arouse him from the slumbers of 
a fatal delusion. This removal of Judge Bronson, confessedly 
without any pretence of official misconduct, from an ojOfice 
which he only accepted to oblige General Pierce, and the base 
attempt, through the pampered minions of executive favor, 
to blacken his unsullied and spotless character, presents a de- 
gree of moral turpitude, malevolence, and revenge, unparal- 
leled in the political history of this country. 

This foolish and unjust act of General Pierce, without one 
palliating circumstance to redeem the perfidious motive that 
prompted its perpetration, stamps the administration of the 
President with the black seal of public reprobation, to which 
it will be henceforth glaringly exposed. 

Let not a President of the United States, even, though 
exalted be the station, become so giddy and deluded, as to 
suppose he may not be reached and exposed for flagrant acts 
of injustice towards those whom he has cheated and betrayed. 
General Pierce went into the Presidency on the popular sen- 
timent pervading all classes of our people, contained in the 
compromise measures, which recemented the north and the 
south, and healed up the lacerated wounds inflicted by rabid 
secessionists and fanatic free-soilers, sealing with the indelible 
impress of infamy, those disorganizing, unprincipled despera- 
does, whom, to the dishonor and disturbance of the country, 
and to the lasting disgrace of the President, he has treacher- 
ously raised up from the tomb of political pollution, and taken 
to his bosom as his confidential counsellors and advisers. 
These, and their minions, every where placed in positions of 
power throughout the land, revelling in oflicial rewards, like 
poisonous and deleterious exhalations rising from a slough of 
stagnant putrefaction and death, stroll through the country, 
from one end of it to the other, armed with slung-shot, bowie- 



40 

knives, brickbats, and bludgeons, attempt to overawe and con- 
trol the political conventions of the people, and infamize the 
community, and bring down the morals of our citizens to the 
low dead level of profanity and drunkenness, requisite now to 
conform to the fashionable standard in vogue with those 
known to be in high favor at the White House. 

General Pierce charges through his official organ, the 
Washington Union, in an article from which I have already 
quoted, that Mr. Brady and myself have taken an attitude of 
hostility towards his administration, which places us as clearly 
in opposition, as if we had openly assumed the name of whigs. 
Hence he argues that, inasmuch as our democratic fellow-citi- 
zens have seen fit to put us in nomination for State officers, 
and as Judge Bronson, when goaded by the impertinence and 
effrontery of the abolitionizing cabal of Tammany Hall, had 
the manly courage and defiant firmness to declare his prefe- 
rence for the ticket having our names on it, to that nominated 
by the short-boy delegation from the stews and Five Points 
of the city of New- York; Bronson, himself, is therefore al- 
leged to be in an attitude of opposition to the administration ; 
and turned out of office. 

When and how was it that Mr. Brady and myself were 
found in an attitude of hostility to the administration, such as 
it is, of General Pierce ? What brought us, or, rather, drove 
us into an attitude of disapproval of the course of General 
Pierce's administration? Was it a matter of our own choice? 
Or were we not pressed into positions by the free-soil favorites 
of General Pierce, which rendered it incumbent upon us as 
honest men, not only to characterize his abolitionizing satel- 
lites as they deserved, but to express, also, our disappraval 
of the mistake he had made, in preferring the Van Buren 
traitors of 1848, over the better claims to executive attention 
and distinction, of unwavering true-hearted democrats, who 
had never deserted the constitutional guaranties of the gov- 
ernment — who had always stood by the compromise measures, 
and who had contributed a hundred-fold more to elevate Gen- 
eral Pierce to the presidency, than those unworthy bolters and 
renegades from the democratic party, on whom he appeared 
inclined to lavish nearly all the public patronage of the Gov- 
ernment ? 



41 

Sucli was manifestly the fact with respect to the conduct 
of General Pierce ; and such, also, was the position of Mr. 
Brady and myself, as regards the attitude of defence we were 
compelled to assume towards those unworthy and corrupt cor- 
morants for political plunder, whom he had warmed into the 
malignant activity of vipers and asps, by foolishly attempting 
to smother their cupidity and secure their friendship, by means 
of government place and patronage. This unfortunate state 
of things. General Pierce, himself, had brought about. Neither 
Mr. Brady nor myself had the slightest agency in producing 
it ; and it was in sorrow, rather than in a spirit of enmity or 
ill-will towards General Pierce, or any member of his cabinet, 
that we found ourselves in positions that required a fearless 
expression of opinion with respect to the impropriety and in- 
justice of the President's conduct in nominating so many short- 
boy bullies to places of honor and trust, to the exclusion and 
culpable neglect of competent and worthy democrats, who were 
' not only warm friends of General Pierce, but they are active, 
liberal and influential members of the party, and have the full 
confidence of all who know them. Conduct of this kind, which, 
carried to the extent practised by General Pierce, amounts to 
downright treachery, we think, formed not only a subject 
for severe criticism, but deserved the just condemnation which 
we stamped upon it at the time ; and which, for one, I have 
had no cause to regret ; and, similarly placed, in like circum- 
stances, I should do again ; though I do regret exceedingly, 
that betrayal of the confidence and dependence placed in the 
character of General Pierce — which was inferred from his 
course in Congress and his native State, and so emphatically 
pronounced in his grandiloquent inaugural, with respect to 
his disfavor towards free-soil factionists, should have occurred, 
so as to have rendered it imperative on me, in conformity with 
a sense of duty, to utter my disapprobation of such apparent 
inconsistency and folly. 

Had General Pierce sustained himself, and his own ad- 
ministration ; and had he administered the government in 
accordance with his star-spangled inaugural, he would not 
now have to complain, that those who contributed to the 
extent of their ability, as I claim to have done myself, to 



42 

place him in the high position which he so imperfectly adorns, 
have assumed an attitude of open hostility to his administra- 
tion. His administration then would have sustained itself, as 
General Jackson's did ; and millions of intelligent American 
citizens, who now look upon his administration with loathing 
and contempt, would have rallied around his standard and 
sustained him gloriously through every emergency, and re- 
joiced at his success. But, after his manifested treachery 
towards the national democracy throughout the Union, and 
his persistent though futile attempts to abolitionize the demo- 
cratic party, and conform its action to the principles laid 
down in the Buffalo platform ; while professing, himself, to 
stand on that of Baltimore, which his free-soil friends and 
short-boy " witnesses" have spit upon ; both General Pierce 
and his administration are likely to go down to posterity 
under the just contempt and scorn of all who entertain a 
decent regard for common honesty and fair dealing. 

If General Pierce finds Judge Bronson, or Mr. Brady, or 
myself, and other national democrats, occupying an attitude 
hostile to him, and to the policy developed by his administra- 
tion, it is not because we have changed or wavered one jot or 
tittle from the position we occupied at the time of his election ; 
but it is because he himself, who at that time was supposed to 
be with us, has caved in and gone over to the barnburner 
bullies and short-boy pugilists, whom we have strenuously 
contended against for years, and with whose nefarious princi- 
ples, w^hich General Pierce himself seems fully to have 
adopted, we have waged an uncompromising warfare. Had 
the President remained true to the democratic faith ; had he 
not softened and yielded at the seductive contact with the 
spoils of his political elevation, he would have had no just 
provocation to accuse Judge Bronson, nor Mr. Brad}^, nor 
myself, of standing as "clearly in opposition to him, as if we 
had assumed the name of whigs." 

Whigs were always opposed to free soil filibusteros and 
barnburner bullies, and so were the national democrats ; hence 
it is, that General Pierce having sold out, caved in, and 
turned free-soiler, now of necessity, owing to his change of 
principles and position, finds both whigs and democrats in 



43 

direct antagonism, and in open hostility to the new political 
attitude and character he has unfortunately assumed. How- 
ever unpleasant this new attitude of hostility to the demo- 
cracy, which General Pierce has assumed towards it, since 
his election to the Presidency, may be to his feelings, the 
seductive height of his position will hardly afford sufficient 
attraction to carry the national democratic party over to him 
and his free-soil friends ; therefore, should he desire to change 
the posture of affairs, so as to bring his administration out of 
a hostile attitude towards those who are now, and always 
have been in full communion with the national democracy, 
his course is perfectly clear before him ; he has only to come 
out from the free-soil party, and penitently return to that 
from which he has deserted, and proved himself recreant to 
its time-honored principles, by embracing those of political 
infidels and bowie-knife assassins. There has been no deser- 
tion on the part of the national democracy, of the principles 
on which General Pierce declared his administration to be 
founded, on taking charge of the government. The only 
deserter in the camp is the General himself, who, instead of 
being the honored and acknowledged leader of a great pa- 
triotic and powerful party, is now only the nominal head of a 
Cabal — a sort of Punch and Judy conductor of the free-soil 
performances, with a wire in his back, by which he is twitched 
backwards and forwards, and made to kick up his heels here 
and dance there, to just such kind of music as the organ- 
grinders of his cabinet take a fancy to sing in his deluded 
ears! 

If this position is uncomfortable and disagreeable to Gene- 
ral Pierce, he cannot say that it is not one of his own choice ; 
nor that he assumed it without being impressively warned of 
its difficulties, and the mischievous consequences to him, and 
the success of his administration, that must inevitably result 
from so insane and ill-devised a procedure. 

General Pierce opened the performance of his presidency 
on the Baltimore platform ; but, having a previous engage- 
ment with the free-soil managers, the curtain fell on pronounc- 
ing his inaugural prologue there, and he has ever since been 
miserably playing to thin houses of ill-fame on the Buffalo 
stage. 



44 

It is at any time a dangerous experiment to desert friends 
and undertake to buy one's enemies ; but, at General Pierce's 
time of life, it cannot prove otherwise than every way disas- 
trous and flital to him. 

This calamity to General Pierce and his administration 
was early foreseen to be the inevitable result of his insane 
conduct, and he was abundantly admonished of his danger ; 
but he has chosen of his own free-will and volition, to take 
live coals into his bosom and handle pitch, and he must ex- 
pect to get burned and soiled by the experiment. 

"While the true friends of General Pierce look with sorrow 
on his downward course, and present position, they have for 
themselves, their families, and their country, high responsibi- 
lities and important duties to perform, which preclude the pos- 
sibility of their indulging the slightest sympathy with his re- 
prehensible conduct, or with that of the free soil companions 
w^hom he has chosen to accompany him along his inglorious 
presidential career. 

If in occasional lucid moments, should such happen to 
occur. General Pierce returns to the lofty summit of his 
country's regard, which, by his stupendous treachery, he has 
so justly forfeited, and looks down into the "lower deep" of 
degradation and contempt, to which he has foolishly descend- 
ed, no one will envy him the wretchedness of the contempla- 
tion ; and in commiseration of his misery, one might almost 
in mercy pray for the return of his delirium, to deliver him 
from the horrors of a conscience-smitten conviction of the per- 
nicious evils his madness is likely to inflict upon the institu- 
tions of the Union ! 

What a monstrous doctrine does General Pierce attempt to 
inculcate, and how directly calculated is it to subvert inalienable 
rights, and injuriously affect domestic relations of independent 
and sovereign States, when he assumes a control over the 
suffrages of American citizens in order to mould our State 
elections to suit the complexion of his cabinet at Washington. 

We have here, in this State, great questions of public 
policy, connected with our internal improvements and other 
important subjects, with which General Pierce cannot be 
otherwise than imperfectly acquainted, and which are to be 



45 

seriously aifected for weal or woe, by the result of the ap- 
proaching election. If the ticket prevails, for which he has 
so significantly expressed his preference, over that upon 
which he has been pleased to pronounce the fiat of executive 
condemnation, the conservative national democracy of New- 
York have abundant and most manifest reasons to believe 
that those great interests will be completely abandoned and 
sacrificed to the cupidity and plundering propensities of the 
adjuncts of the Tammany Hall cabal, whom General Pierce 
has unwisely lent the great patronage of his high office, to 
erect into a supremacy of authority in the Empire State. 

The free people of New- York will never concede the 
right, to a President of the United States, nor to any other 
functionary of the general government, however high may be 
his official position, or exalted his abilities, to interfere thus 
audaciously, as has been attempted on the part of General 
Pierce and his Cabinet, with the local elections and other 
questions, strictly of a domestic character in this State. This 
daring effrontery on the part of the President and the men of 
moderate ability, whom he has called into his Cabinet, much 
to the regret of all classes of American citizens ; and, as is 
believed, much to the detriment of the public interests, with 
the domestic concerns of this State ; while it manifestly meets 
the decided disapproval of all good citizens every where 
throughout the country, so far as expression has been given 
to the all-pervading sentiment, is here, where the mischief is 
calculated to work the most effectual canker and poison to the 
interests, dear to every conservative national man, indelibly 
stamped with defiant disapprobation and scorn. We, of the 
north, after fighting gloriously, under the lead of the gallant 
and intrepid Dickinson, the great battle of the constitutional 
compromises, on which rests the stability of the Union, in 
favor of the State rights of the south and their peculiar do- 
mestic institutions, will not now supinely sit down and bow 
our heads ignominiously to the block, when our very hearth- 
stones and households are assailed, however potent may be the 
aggressive force with which we may be called to contend, or 
however far the men of the south may come short of the high 
standard of support, we feel that we had reason to expect. 



46 

If the hand of executive power, which we have so largely 
contributed to elevate, and for which, on its advent to the 
Presidency, we had such high hopes of being able to support, 
believing as we did, in the integrity of its principles and in- 
tended future course ; now that it has seen fit to change its 
direction and abandon the high aims indicated in the inaugu- 
ral of General Pierce, is to be turned ungraciously and with 
ingratitude against us, it will be fearlessly resisted and gal- 
lantly combated, until that power itself, and the treacherous 
hand that so tyrannically wields it, are both ignominiously 
trampled beneath our feet. Let not the President of the 
United States, nor the pitiful minions of his power suppose, 
by turning out of office the only men who could, by possi- 
bility, lend dignity to his administration, and give it the 
slightest claim to respect, and insure its success, under pre- 
tence of "vindicating his policy " and "rebuking insubordina- 
tion," but, substantially, with a view to influence and control 
the local elections of New-York, that such an unwarrantable 
and high-handed procedure, will for a single moment be si- 
lently submitted to, or acquiesced in by the people of this 
State. 

The men of the south, in whose noble strife for their just 
rights, the gallant son of New-York, and his patriotic com- 
panions of the north, participated so largely in their extremity, 
may now, when their aid is so much needed to sustain the 
principles of that war-worn chief, and of those who stand in 
battle array around him, turn a deaf ear to our necessities; 
may, perhaps, go to the assistance of the enemy, and confirm, 
possibly, in the Senate of the United States, the free-soil and 
soft-shell appointments of General Pierce, made to replace 
such able, pure-minded, patriotic men as Bronson, and in 
favor of unscrupulous individuals, who are sworn and pledged 
to demolish and exterminate every vestige of nationalism, and 
disgrace every man not identified with the free-soil faction, 
headed by John Van Buren, Cochrane, Fowler, Eedfield, and 
the Short-boy bullies of Tammany Hall ; but we shall, never- 
theless, contend, single-handed if need be, undismayed and 
unconquered, so long as God shall give us breath to continue 
the conflict. 



47 

We, national democrats of the north, do not, we cannot, 
we will not believe that the chivalric and noble-hearted men 
of the south, the national democrats of the genial south, with 
whom and us, hitherto, there has existed so much sympathy, 
and so much cordiality of co-operation, will now turn with 
coldness and indifference to our just cause, when a delirious 
and misguided executive officer of the government, threatens 
to lay his treacherous hands on our dearest rights, and bring 
the whole force of his power and patronage to crush us be- 
neath his tread. 

They, the generous, intelligent, and patriotic men of the 
south, will not fail to appreciate the justice of our cause, and 
the fearless boldness with which we have, thus far, foiled the 
murderous assaults of the common foe. God fails not to help 
and provide means of resistance for honest men struggling in 
a righteous cause, and who endeavor to help themselves. 

Confiding in the purity of our purposes, in the intelligence, 
patriotism, firmness, and determined will of our fellow-citizens, 
to resist to the last the unhallowed aggressions of tyranny, 
let them come from whatever quarter they may, and appealing 
to the whole world for the justice of our cause, we " will 
never surrender ! " 



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